Should Wulven change its "no errata"-policy?

[Expected Value]

Very thoughtful post, Awer. I voted for rulings for a few reasons:

1. I am confident the Wulven team can keep the number of poorly worded cards low enough as to be still manageable through rulings.
2. The true burden to memorize rulings would mostly fall on competitive players who want an edge in organized play, and these are the players who are going to be willing to put in a little more effort anyway. I don't think beginners or amateurs to the physical game need to be confused with multiple versions of the same card unless they happen to be trying their luck in organized play, in which case a judge with access to the special rulings will solve the problem.
3. While playing the digital game, competitive players will notice when the cards do something other than what they expected them to do, so they may naturally learn rulings without even having to consult the rulings themselves. It is unfortunate if someone is unaware of a ruling that they first discover in an online competitive match, but part of being the best is having more experience and therefore having been exposed to more unusual situations. Casual players on the other hand may not even notice or care.

That being said, I think the wordings you suggested in the linked previous posts would have been better and as you said these issues may become more important as expansions come out and the number of card combinations increases exponentially.

[Awer]

Thank you, Expected Value, for explaining your point of view in such detail. I think you bring up good points, and if the case would be that the digital cards would be linked to their associated rulings (so that for example, by clicking an icon on a card, the rulings associated with that card would be shown), the process of learning and memorizing them could possibly be eased further. This would, in a sense, give much of the same benefits to the digital game that actual errata would. (Maybe even card-FAQ entries could be linked in the same way someday.)

Part of the PFG's job is to find stuff like that. We use ALL the cards, not just the ones from the expansion.

I would say that the nature of wording errors is such that it can be difficult to find them unless one makes a conscious effort to look for them. Since the digital game "automates" the functionality of cards, it can be easy to overlook what the wording says. A good example would be the clarification text of the Protector-ability, which, to my knowledge, has always said (and it still does):

"Allies without protector can't be targeted."

That's not how it really works, but people often are, by rote, so used to how it actually works that they don't end up paying attention to the specific wording. So whether PFG testing is effective in catching these kind of issues depends partly on whether the testers actively focus on finding them.

The Protector-keyword is defined in the current version 1.0 of the Official Rulebook like this:

"Allies without Protector can’t be targeted by other players."

That definition is still lacking, so I hope the official side can give due attention to the details of wording in the future.

... My point isn't so much with this expantion as down the road with future expasions and 2 vs 2 play etc.

I think these are good points. In regular 1v1 games, it doesn't make a difference whether, for example, the Protector ability affects "all other players" or just "opposing players", but when multiplayer games come along, it suddenly matters. Ideally, I imagine that how multiplayer works would be the result of intentional design, but with the current approach, it might "have to be" shaped up based on whatever wording choices were made in the past.

One contributing factor as to why some fallacies were left into the wording of the core set cards is that they weren't noticed before the deadline to publish the physical cards. After the full set was on the test server, forum volunteers did a notable amount of work to improve the state of the wording to the level it currently is (a lot of it can be read here), but some of it didn't make it in time. So with the expansion nearing the test server release, to avoid repeating history, Wulven could have the new cards "proof-read" in official capacity, and make sure that there won't be pressing deadlines imposed this time. (Making any time constraints public from the beginning would help too.) I also hope that in the future, new cards can be worded so carefully in their conception stage that wording errors will be a thing of the past.

And I'm sorry that I couldn't write this post earlier, I'm often delayed by real-life stuff.

[SpeakerOfTruth]

With new design space, it makes sense that older cards need to be reworded for greater clarity.

This applies for mechanics, definitions... anything you can think of.

Once again, I bring up the example of MTG, which uses an online resource to hold the newest, most updated rules text of every card. An online resource would make new rulings very accessible. Changes should not be made frivolously, but old rulings should never get in the way of new possibilities.

[Erokk88]

Personally and not to spark debate or discourage devs/players, i think the physical cards do nothing but hurt the game for a multitude of reasons i wont waste your time on. Most relevant to this discussion is the decision to never change anything once they were printed. When they implemented this i thought it was absolute lunacy and frankly i am still surprised they made that decision and have kept it.

It unquestionably adds a large amount of stagnation to the game. It corners them into avoiding future ingenuity on cards, "oh we cant do that it will react badly/too well with card X", it ensures dissatisfaction in some way or another if a card is worthless or too powerfuli(although it can be rightly argued that it avoids it too with players getting frustrated with a new card change), and any inequalities become permanent. stupid. this game's success relies fully on the online capability and the ability to change the game at a keystroke was a strength not a weakness for the devs. Being able to tweak and balance cards keeps things fresh and guarantees no 'exploit' or strategy works forever if it is a problem.


bad move. hope they repeal it

[Dakaest]

I agree how it is lunacy that they've made the decision to not change any of the card text once they been printed. I believe it will increase the difficulty of making future sets because they have to base all newer cards around the cards from the older sets. Many other TCGs have older cards reprinted and released in future sets to balance or change any previous printing or wording errors. This decision may have a slight impact on game play, I guess we'll have to find out!

[Riccardo]

I think at the moment is correct a "step-stone" set for this game. We are at the beginning, not too many cards and first expansion coming soon. Obviously when the game (i really hope so) will grown and there will be much more cards i think it will be inevitable make some correction for some old card....wulven staff is not completly blind...i think they will be ready to modify something.

[SpeakerOfTruth]

Many other TCGs have older cards reprinted and released in future sets to balance or change any previous printing or wording errors. This decision may have a slight impact on game play, I guess we'll have to find out!

MTG, the best selling physical tcg, just revises the online rules. The old cards are treated as if they have the updated rulings (even if the outdated rules that are printed on the card are different).

Granted, this puts the onus on the player to check any updated rulings. The MTG company does its part to raise awareness about updated rulings on its main site.

If the card is ever reprinted, it is printed with the updated wordings. This usually has the effect of driving up the prices of the outdated prints, due to collector's value